From "What's happening?" to "What do we do?": The shift every Israeli can make in seconds

In a personal column, Sharon Luxenburg describes the experience of a flight from Dubai that departed shortly after Flydubai flight FZ1073, where the co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to cause a crash. The writer recounts how information about the incident, which reached passengers while they were in the air, changed their perception of their surroundings and highlighted the rapid Israeli transition from asking "What's happening?" to "What do we do?"

Sharon Luxenburg describes in a personal column her flight experience from Dubai to Israel, which departed immediately after Flydubai flight FZ1073. On that flight, the co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to cause the plane to crash, but passengers and crew managed to overpower him. The writer recounts that information about the incident arrived in real time, while the passengers were in the air, and immediately changed how they perceived their surroundings—a person getting up from their seat transformed from a routine action into a potential warning signal. She compares the situation to United Flight 93 on September 11, where passengers learned through phone calls about the planes hitting the Twin Towers and realized the plane itself was a weapon. The writer argues that in Israel, where daily routine can change within minutes, an almost intimate familiarity develops with the shift from "everything is fine" to "we need to act." She emphasizes that this is not heroism but adaptation, and that the question "What's happening?" quickly gives way to "What do we do?"